16. Belles to the Walls Part IV.

“...Sir Bramwell Stoddard IV of Cecily Kay…!”

A tall, toothpick-skinny man with a curly mustache and a bad combover walked from the gangplank of The Queen’s Tariff to the stone dock, nodding and politely waving to the crowd of people applauding his arrival. 

“...Lady Magda DuPres of Larensburg…!”

Stoddard escorted a deathly pale woman down the gangplank who seemed to be focusing more on her audience than where her next step was going to be. There was a good three feet of distance from the base of her spine and the rear of her frilly dress.

“...Sir Amadeus Woodward of Gunston…!” 

A short, squat man with a collar even wider than himself hobbled down the gangplank, grinning from ear to ear and bowing to the crowd’s delight.

“oh my gods…” Majel groaned to herself. They had been docked at Fiddler’s Green for fifteen minutes yet she and Winn were still aboard the Tariff.  She had forgotten just how pointless and time-consuming formalities could be, like announcing the stupid name of all these ugly socialites. 

She leaned towards Winn. “we’ll never make it to the party at this ra—”

“—Lady Amelia Marchmain of Stementine…!” the announcer interrupted. 

Majel’s ears perked up from surprise. She had been expecting them to say her name, but by that point, it was starting to seem more like a longing than an inevitably. 

She mouthed “Oh my gods, finally…” as she strolled past the skunk and down the gangplank. There was a noticeable drop in the crowd’s enthusiasm upon hearing this complete stranger’s name, but they still applauded her as to not come across as rude.

Majel was unsure as to why she didn’t get as fond of a greeting as the others had. Maybe she wasn’t formal enough in her entrance? She remembered that bowing was a thing fancy people did and regally dipped herself forward. However, she shot back up when she felt her wig starting to dip, too. She adjusted her hair back in place, her cheeks burning bright red as she scuttled down the stone dock in complete silence.

“...Lady…” the announcer said before taking a breath of air, “...Christina de La Camembert Brightman of Inland Isle…!”

The applause drove back up for Winn, who strutted down the gangplank and blew kisses to the crowd. She waltzed up to Majel, took her arm, and guided the cat down the castle’s path.

“My dear Amelia, you must remember that these things have a mind of their own,” Winn said as she adjusted her own beehive wig. “You’ll find that it’s best to not tip your head in any direction unless you really have to.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I get it…” Majel growled. 

The path they walked on connected all of Fiddler’s Green, from its docks to its many mansions—even the Duke’s castle. Not a single crack could be found on its surface. Instead, intricate designs were etched into it, depicting scenes from Horatio Empire history and its religious mythology. Majel’s eyes followed the path, noticing one of the slabs portraying a pirate ship being captured. The next slab showed its crew hanging from nooses. She gulped. 

Two guards in Navyman uniforms stood in front of the Duke’s castle, holding long musket-bayonets and squinting at every partygoer who walked through the gateway. Winn and Majel were about to walk through the entrance before one of the guards held up his hand. 

“Woah, woah, woah! Stop right there!” He said. He gave the cat a once-over and the skunk a twice-over. “Alger, do you recognize these two?” 

The other guard shook his head. “Not in the slightest, Wallace.”

The first guard leaned forward and sneered. “What’s your names?” 

Winn gasped. “How dare you address Lady Christina de La Camembert Brightman and Lady Amelia Marchmain in that manner!” 

“Uh oh…” the guard muttered, now realizing how much pooch screwage he just did. She had a long name—and everybody knows that the longer your name is, the more important you are! “M-madame, I—”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Winn interrupted, wagging her finger. “Do not even attempt flattery after the way you talked to us like that! I should just… march straight to the Duke himself, pull him away from his own party, and explain how you’ve left me oh-so embarrassed in front of my peers!” 

“We’re just fol—” the other guard began. 

“Silence!” the skunk snapped. She took Majel’s arm again, and dismissively waved her hand at the guards. “Now, point those guns away and let us through—or else I’ll see to it that you’ll never step foot on Horatio soil ever, ever again!” 

Not only did the guards ease up, they stepped several feet away from Winn as she and Majel walked through the gates. 

Once they were inside the castle, the skunk snickered to herself. “When you’ve secretly attended as many get-togethers as I have, you realize that sometimes, you have to bully guards or else they’ll bully you.”  

Wallace and Alger resumed their guarding duties, but were much more liberal with who they let in and who they denied. Their demeanors sank from “badass bouncers” to “dogs that just got yelled at.”  If the attendees had brushed hair and clothes that weren’t burlap, they were let through without any questions. 

A tall man holding a black umbrella walked up to the gateway. “Eckscuse me,” he asked in a foreign accent, “may you grant me an invitation to inside the castle?”

“Yeah, s-sure, whatever…” Alger mumbled, still dejected from the skunk’s berating.

“Excellent…” said the stranger. He walked through the entrance so smoothly, it almost seemed like he was floating…

Cain pointed to a large mansion, signaling to D’anna that it would be their first target for the night. It had a comical amount of chimneys and looked so symmetrical, it was as though Cain could fire his pistol and shatter the large mirror responsible for the illusion. 

The skeleton stepped towards the elegant front door, motioning for D’anna to stay away. The elf remained afar (although she wasn’t sure why), staring at her captain from behind a bush. Cain knocked on the door before grabbing a pre-cut wire from his utility pouch. 

An older man with a curly mustache opened the door. “May I hel–” 

Cain pounced and wrestled him onto the ground, which wasn’t easy, since skeletons and old people were pretty similar in weight. The captain punched the man in the face and wrapped the wire several times around his wrinkly hands before tying a knot.

“CAPTAIN!” D’anna screamed in horror. 

“Shut yer mouth, elf!” the skeleton hissed. “I be startin’ ta think ye didn’t really grasp tha concept of ‘stealth’ when I first explained it ta ye!” 

“I’ll have—” the man yelled before Cain snapped his jaw shut with a hand. 

“You said that these houses would be empty because of the party!” the elf cried. 

“Belay that talk!” the skeleton scoffed as he picked up the tied-up geezer. “I said that tha people what lived here and their guards wouldn’t be home. We just have ta take care of a couple servants, that be all!” 

Using his skull, Cain motioned for D’anna to open a nearby closet. Even though she was not on board with the plan, the elf obliged anyway. 

The skeleton dumped the bounded butler onto the ground and held out a hand. “Towel!” 

D’anna passed him a folded-up rag. The skeleton balled it up and shoved it into the man’s gaping maw like an apple in a cooked pig’s mouth.

“That oughta keep ‘em from talkin’...” the skeleton chuckled. “Oh! An’ that be fishin’ wire wrapped around yer mitts—I wouldn’t be strugglin’ so much if you wanted ta keep ‘em,” the captain said before closing the door. 

Cain dusted his hands. “Now that he’s taken care of, scour this place and take anythin’ that strikes yer fancy. Gold, jewels, trink—” 

THUMP!

The skeleton’s words reached an abrupt stop. He and D’anna turned to their left and saw a twitching, wide-eyed maid standing over a tossed-over basket of laundry. Cain reached into his pouch and pulled out the spool of wire again. 

“Pardon my intrusion, madames, but I don’t believe we’ve met before,” a rotund, huffy-voiced man said before bowing in front of Winn and Majel. “Sir Amadeus Woodward of Gunston, at your service.”

Winn returned the favor, leaning forward and elegantly pointing a hand out. “Lady Christina de La Camembert Brightman of Inland Isle.”

There was a pause as Amadeus and Winn waited for Majel to introduce herself, but there was no response. Winn’s eyes darted to the side to stare some daggers at the cat for her lack of manners.

However, Majel was leaning forward—just… over the grazing table, which was filled to the brim with all sorts of delicacies and desserts she’d never been able to eat for years. Winn nudged her pointy elbow into the cat’s ass, which was sticking straight up into the air as she leaned over the buffet. 

Majel’s ears perked up before she swirled around, hissing with a mouth full of Beef Wellington before realizing where she was or what she was doing. 

“Uhh…” Winn faltered, “this is my bosom friend, Lady Amelia Marchmain of Stementine.”

Majel, not knowing what to do, nodded in agreement. She hurried up her chewing so she could swallow already. Winn furrowed her brow at the cat, signaling for her to lock in. 

“Apologies, my good sir,” Majel blushed, “the ferry ride here left me quite… uh… uh…” 

She remembered the fancy word for ‘hungry,’ “...ravished!” 

Woodward chuckled. “The Duke does go all-out with the catering, does he?” he smiled before taking a plate and loading it with hors d'oeuvres. “The ferry ride here—The Queen’s Tariff, was it?—quite the smooth passage, I’d say so myself.”

“Positively smooth!” Winn agreed. 

“Floating, even!” Majel added in a similarly hollow response.

“I know the captain personally,” Woodward bragged, “his brother and I went to the same university in Gunston.” 

“Gunston University, I’ve heard about that institution!” Winn lied. “Did you ever know a uh… Lloyd Feathershawl? He’s a dear friend of mine, he teaches Advanced Literature there.” 

Amadaeus raised an eyebrow. “Did you mean Drummond University? There is only one college in Gunston, unless another magically appeared within the last month or so…”

“THAT must be the place… that I was thinking of…” Winn faltered. 

A younger man with oily-looking hair butted in. “Excuse me, but I could not help but overhear your conversation. I took Advanced Literature II last autumn semester with Burke Collins, Drummonds’ embedded professor for that course. I’ve never heard the name Lloyd Feathershawl in all my time so far!”

“Nor have I,” Amadeus agreed.  

Winn took a deep breath in an effort to stay calm. “I… must’ve been played the fool then! I’ll have to give Mr. Feathershawl quite the talking to next time I’m in Inland Isle, won’t I?” 

Majel, who was still focusing on her beef wellington, contorted her face as an acidic musk wafted into her nostrils. She was about to ask if anyone else could notice the smell, but the look on everyone’s face answered the question for her—especially Winn’s mortified expression. 

“Excuse me,” she meekly said before scurrying towards the powder room. Everyone in attendance literally caught wind of a foul stench in the air, like sulfur and acidic eggs. 

There was an awkward silence as everybody was left to linger in skunk spray. Majel took another bite of her Wellington. “This could stand a tad less mustard.” 

“I concur…” Amadeus said as he handed his plate off to a nearby servant. 

Majel knocked on the powder-room door. “Wi—dammit—I mean, Christina? Are you still there?” 

“I’m fine, Amelia, I just need a minute. Just… freshing myself up… after fumigating the party…!” she cried. She dabbed a handkerchief over her runny makeup, quickly running out of clean space. Then, she blew her nose with a second handkerchief, making sure not to mix up the two. 

“I’m sure nobody connected it to you!” Majel lied. “You ran out of there so fast, it just looked like you had… sensitive nostrils!”  

“I’m a skunk, everybody knew it came from me!” Winn sobbed. “I-I can’t help it! I sprayed a whole bottle of perfume on myself and you could still smell it! ” 

“I could, yeah...” Majel muttered.

“Don’t agree!” Winn blubbed. “I just knew it would happen at some point, I knew it!”

”WINN!” Majel yelled, channeling her instructors from her Naval Academy days. “My gods, woman, you are a mess right now! You stink, you’re sobbing, and your makeup is all smeared! Does that sound like Lady Christina de la Camembert Brightman of Inland Isle?”

Winn shook her head. 

“No! It doesn’t! Lady Christina de la Camembert Brightman of Inland Isle is a sexy, sophisticated socialite who dominates every get-together she attends!”

She started to circle around Winn. “Does the same Lady Christina who made that guard her bitch cry like one because of a little gas?” 

“It’s not gas, it’s a sulfur-infused spray that comes out of my—” 

“Does she?!” 

“No, she doesn’t!” 

“Then fix your face and get out there! Be that sexy, sophisticated socialite because you are!” 

Winn wiped a tear with the back of her paw. “Thank you, Majel…” 

“Lady Amelia Marchmain,” Majel corrected. 

When the cat and the skunk returned to the main ballroom, the crowd was lumped together into two giant groups. 

“What, may I ask, has everyone so excited?” Winn asked a nearby servant. 

The guard gestured towards a nearby door. “The Duke is making his entrance at last.” 

Winn and Majel looked at each other, their eyes as wide as saucer plates. Majel started rubbing her hands together like a fly cleaning itself thinking about that coronet payout. 

Suddenly, trumpets blew their fanfare. Everybody’s gaze focused on a large pair of doors that two guards and the announcer from the docks stood in front of. “Introducing his magnificent grace,” the announcer boomed, “Duke Viktor Peregrine III of Fiddler’s Green!”

Two guards opened the door to thunderous applause, much more than everybody from the Queen’s Tariff had received. A man in a large, frilly collar and thick cape swaggered through the space between the crowds. His wig was almost as white as his sickly complexion. His face had an uncanny ugliness to it, comparable to when someone known for their facial hair shaves. 

“There’s too many people!” Majel whisper-yelled as she stood on the tip of her toes. “Can you see the crown at all?” 

Winn, who had a good half-a-foot on Majel when it came to height, gleamed. “I see it! I see the coronet,” she smiled. “It’s beautiful! It’s got a purple cap, jewels all over the brim, golden—”

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream pierced through the applause like a guillotine’s blade. 

Enthusiasm turned to gasps and frantic whispering as a wave of terror washed over the party. The crowd backed away from the grazing table, under which laid the body of Amadeus Woodward. Two guards pulled him out and began to talk amongst each other. 

One guest, a uniformed man with a goatee and sunken eyes, pointed to the guards that stood by the door. “Alger! Wallace! Seal the exits! Nobody can leave until the murderer has been found—not you, not I, nor the Duke himself! Everybody in this room is now a suspect!!” 

“Godsdammit!” Majel yelled.